As state funding shrinks, Parc officials have worked the last few years to trim spending, streamline operations and cut to the "bare bones" to preserve programs.

But efforts to continue serving developmentally disabled people in the Peoria area don't work when the state won't pay up.

In early September, Illinois owed nearly $400,000 in outstanding payments to Parc, which provides care, rehabilitation, job training and in some cases housing to more than 650 clients.

That overdue amount climbed sharply to more than $1 million by late September, officials with Parc said. But even that is small compared to what it's been owed at other points in the last few years. At some points between June 2009 and the start of the current fiscal year on July 1, the group was owed more than $4 million, CEO Kim Cornwell said.

That debt was winnowed down mostly because the state needed to catch up to capture matching Medicaid funds from the federal government before eligibility went away, she said.

Still, Parc had to tap into its $2 million line of credit twice last year. It also applied for "expedited payment" status from the state - being moved to the head of the line for repayment to have sufficient cash flow to keep operations running - two times in the same year, the limit under Illinois' policies.

Along the way, it racked up $22,068 in interest from borrowing against its line of credit, more than twice the amount it had to borrow in the year before.

It's between a rock and a hard place for Parc. Some programs cannot simply be eliminated. For example, it has just less than 160 people who live in homes the group operates. It can't discharge anyone living there without permission from the state - and the individuals living there would still need to have care arranged, perhaps still at government expense.

"We wouldn't be able to downsize a program area because of that," Cornwell said.

In other instances, staff can only be reduced so far.

"Because of the fragile nature of most of the individuals we serve, we also can't cut staffing to a certain extent because things will happen, people will be hurt," Cornwell said. If that happens, fines from the state could eat up even more of Parc's operating cash.

"We have already cut everything as thin as we believe we can without discontinuing services," she said. They aren't exploring cutting any services now, but Cornwell admits that after reducing almost everywhere they can, "the next step would possibly be to discontinue services."

Already, a number of programs it offers, from a specialized dental-care program to limited respite care for families of the severely disabled, continue to face possible state funding cuts.

Page 2 of 2 - With late bills on top of that, Parc has had to nip and tuck wherever it's able in its budget. That includes not increasing wages for employees to stay competitive and, in many cases, workers are absorbing additional responsibilities.

Though most of the upper-level administrators have been around for at least a decade, and the organization can still offer health benefits, Cornwell said Parc has "difficulty attracting and retaining staff," in part because of the pay.

"Parc isn't competing with Wal-Mart," she said. "We're competing with McDonald's" in terms of employee pay.

Chris Kaergard can be reached at 686-3135 or ckaergard@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisKaergard